Dueling percussionists! Enjoy today’s Fun Friday!
What they must have been like in their high school marching band pit:
R Is for Reserve Against Returns
Every traditionally published author needs to understand the principle of “Reserves Against Returns,” which is an integral part of publishing economics. It can reduce the amount of money an author receives in their royalty statement. It is usually a shock and elicits a phone call to their agent crying, “What happened to my money?” Did you realize that book publishing is the …
Fun Fridays – November 3, 2023
Sit back and let this performance wash over you. Turn the volume up. “Shall We Gather at the River.” Gorgeous. HT: Dick Malone
J Is for Just-in-Time
The economics of bookselling are complex and ever-changing. There is a method of inventory control called “Just-in-Time” (or JIT) that revolutionized both the retail and manufacturing industries. When I began as a bookseller, there was no such thing as computerized inventory, at least not in the Christian bookstore business. We used a method called “Stack ’em high and watch ’em fly.” Because “If …
Fun Fridays – October 27, 2023
I title today’s video “Leave it to the proofreader to find the ONE mistake in your entire masterpiece.” HAHA!
H Is for Hybrid
To state the obvious, the publishing industry has changed rather dramatically over the last few years. The possibility for a writer to inexpensively produce their own books (in e-book form) shifted the sands. In addition, the economic challenges facing the brick-and-mortar bookstore reduced the amount of shelf space available to launch a new book via traditional methods. It appears to be an …
Fun Fridays – October 20, 2023
Today’s clever short movie is called The Black Hole (less than three minutes long). I’ll admit, I laughed at the end. What would you have named this if you had written this short story? (A story without words.)
P Is for Preemptive Offer
It can be exciting if more than one publisher is interested in your book. The publishers gather their calculators and prepare to make their offers on the book. Depending on how many publishers are involved in the bidding process (we’ve had as many as nine at once for a property), it can quickly become complicated. (I talked about the “auction” in a previous post.) Some will bid solely …
Fun Friday – October 13, 2023
Let us watch today’s video as a metaphor for writing a book. Piece by piece. Nail by nail. And you have to know what you are doing, or it all collapses. This is why you get annoyed when people say to you, “I’m going to write a book someday,” as if it were easy. Note something about the video. Your foundation has to be absolutely correct because everything depends on it. …
A Is for Auction
When an agent has a client who is wanting to shop for the best deal available from publishers or if there is a particular project that is bound to garner significant interest from more than one publisher, the agent can hold what it called an auction. Or if a project attracts multiple offers from different publishers a “bidding war” can ensue. The word “auction” is tossed …